दिल्ली उच्च न्यायालय में सुब्रमण्यम स्वामी की याचिका पर सुनवाई, राहुल गांधी की नागरिकता रद्द करने की मांग

Delhi High Court to hear plea by Subramanian Swamy seeking cancellation of Rahul Gandhi's citizenship

The Delhi High Court will hear on Wednesday a PIL filed by senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking direction to the Union Home Ministry to cancel Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Indian citizenship as he has "declared himself to be a British citizen". According to the cause list published on the Delhi High Court website, a bench headed by Chief Justice Manmohan will hear the matter on Wednesday. In an earlier hearing, a bench headed by Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed that a similar plea was pending in the Allahabad High Court and asked the Central government's standing counsel to obtain a copy of the plea along with the status of the case pending in the Allahabad High Court. Adjourning the hearing, the Delhi High Court observed that in the interest of justice the same issue should not be raised simultaneously in two different forums. It said, "We want to ensure that we do not encroach upon the jurisdiction of the other high court." The plea filed by Swamy before the Delhi High Court sought a direction to the Union Home Ministry to submit a status report on the complaint/representation filed by him against Gandhi and decide on it at the earliest.

The BJP leader had written a letter to the Union Home Ministry in 2019, calling for a breach by Rahul Gandhi of voluntarily disclosing to the UK government that he is a citizen of British citizenship and holds a British passport. Swamy said that with this declaration, the Congress leader ceases to be an Indian citizen as per Article 9 of the Constitution read with the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955. “A company called Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in the year 2003, having the address 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9EH, where Gandhi was one of the directors and secretary of the said company. In a letter to Rahul Gandhi on Swamy's complaint, the Union Home Ministry said, "In the annual returns filed by the company on 10/10/2005 and 31/10/2006, your (Gandhi) date of birth is mentioned as 19/06/1970 and you have mentioned your nationality as British. Further, in the dissolution application of the above-mentioned company dated 17/02/2009, your nationality is mentioned as British." Swamy said in his petition that he sent several memoranda to the Ministry of Home Affairs for the status and update of his complaint, but no action was taken on it nor was he informed about it. The petition said, "Therefore, this petition is for a direction to respondent number 1 (Ministry of Home Affairs) to submit a status report on the complaint/representation filed by the petitioner against respondent number 2 (Rahul Gandhi) and to decide on the complaint/representation filed by the petitioner as early as possible and to submit the conclusion/final order of the complaint/representation filed."